Month: December 2015

This was a mix of a simulation and a puzzle game as an immigration officer at a border checkpoint for the fictitious country of Arstotzka in 1982. Inspecting the passports and papers of the arrivals from a massive queue was split up in days. In between a family had to be supported with the income, and if I had too many validation errors then maybe they would starve, be cold, or even die.

On various new days there were a change of rules, possibly introducing a new tool. Sometimes it was just additional papers, at other times confiscating passports, detaining, searching for hidden weapons after a couple of snapshots, even using a key to open a locker with a weapon and shooting a runner.

I didn’t expect this one to grab me as much as it did. Normally I’m not always keen on these simulation kind of games, and I had prepared myself for one of those that I played for one hour (the unwritten backlog rule) and then abandoned. I even selected easy mode with an additional income to avoid having to break too much of a sweat supporting my family. But within just a few minutes I was really hooked.

One reason was the terrific atmosphere – the dark, dystopian scenario, with perfect muffled talk sounds. Another reason was that checking up on details in passports, papers and fingerprints spoke to my tad of a perfectionist gene that I made good use of in my 12 years as a software tester. Not that I didn’t get quite a few error receipts. Sometimes the game did feel a bit unfair as if it wanted me to be downright wrong about a decision no matter what I chose. But that feeling of nailing a wrong piece of information and maybe even detaining someone, it was mysteriously fascinating.

After some random exploration, various side quests and most of the quest line for the Minutemen, I have finally decided that I’ve seen what I want to see of the vanilla version of Fallout 4. Maybe I’ll be back for some DLC later. I got to level 55, with 264 locations discovered and 108 quests completed. I maximized hacking and lockpicking relatively early and kept to mostly using single shot rifles, sometimes assisted by an automatic rifle with explosive bullets whenever I had ammunition for it.

The game generally had a bit too much street fighting for my liking. There were hardly any place I could go in the world where a gun fight wasn’t taking place somewhere in the distance. It often sounded like New Year’s Eve. Brotherhood of Steel was also quite aggressive and often had a Vertibird or two flying around. Hey, we have a skirmish over here, come on over and help us out! Sometimes it spiced up the action and was fun to take part of, but as said before, I still think they overdid it. There were situations where I just wanted to do a quest and was constantly pestered with skirmishes on the way.

By the way, I have a weird tip for you in case you’re bored watching loading screens. You can rotate the model by holding down the left mouse button and then move the mouse around. You can also toggle the green soda filter by hitting the V.A.T.S. button. I wonder if there’s more that can be controlled like this on the loading screen? It’s important.

With more than 400 completed games notched into my belt – 50+ alone being CRPG – it’s inevitable that some parts of this particular genre has started feeling worn out. It’s like having heard the same kind of joke thousands of times before. Even with a different wording, you can predict every beat of the joke as it’s being told, and the final twist will leave you numb. Know that feeling? For an old geezer like me, this sensation can come with everything these days. Movies, games, books – you name it.

Luckily CRPG tend to be so detailed and multifaceted that there’s stuff to like and admire, even when they tend to trigger the most tired tropes of all time. Maybe the tropes they’ve reused may even have a different approach to still make it fresh. Nevertheless these kinds of tropes are often so hackneyed that it’s almost impossible to impress me with variations on their theme anymore, unless the interpretation acknowledges the danger and really tries to consciously adapt and surprise.

Let me list what I personally find to be the worst contenders among these tired CRPG tropes.

I’ve completed the main quest and a bunch of side quests as well, and have reached level 43. I’m far from having completed the game though, as there’s still a ton of spots I’ve never visited on the map. Knowing Bethesda, there’s bound to be a lot of side quests I haven’t seen yet. As an indication of this, I’ve only found half a dozen companions so far and I know there are a lot more. That being said, I actually played solo for a while after having maximized Piper’s and Nick’s devotion. I don’t know, I guess I can’t ever shake the desire to be a lone wolf in games like these. I like not being dependent on anyone else than myself.

That sounds awfully familiar, actually.

My main weapon focus has been on rifles. I maximized the perk for rifles, and I currently have a legendary combat rifle on the first slot plus a legendary shotgun on the second. The shotgun does awesome damage but also have a ginormous recoil as part of the legendary attributes, which probably explains why I can’t mod it away. I also made a Gauss rifle my first sniper choice. A long scope, warming up the shot, and then holding my breath for a precise shot – not a lot of enemies can survive a direct hit from that. And finally, I have a missile launcher for when the enemies get too close to each other.